Apple Quits U.S. Chamber of Commerce Over Climate
Apple became the fourth company in recent days to completely sever ties with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over the business lobby’s backwards stance on climate change.
In a letter to the Chamber obtained by the New York Times, Apple states [PDF]:
The letter from Apple Vice President Catherine Novelli continues:
Apple did the right thing, and other Chamber members should follow suit immediately.
NRDC has an excellent run-down of several recent editorials from around the country, all slamming the Chamber of Commerce’s efforts to block action to address climate change. The New York Times editorial points out that “no organization in this country has done more to undermine [climate] legislation."
The Times editorial “Way Behind The Curve” notes that the companies who have quit the Chamber so far “see a carbon-constrained world coming and want to get out ahead of the curve — not behind it like the chamber.”
The Boston Globe skewered the Chamber for its "increasingly shrill, doom-saying opposition to climate change legislation in Washington" in its editorial titled "US Chamber of Overstated Horrors.”
The Globe called the recent departure of energy companies Exelon, PNM Resources and PG&E “welcome cracks in the stone wall of the chamber. The question is how many more of the chamber’s 3 million members need to quit before the organization alters its retrograde view."
That is a great question. How many companies will stand up and quit the Chamber? Every departure sends a strong message to the Chamber that a few powerful fossil fuel interests cannot claim to represent the views of corporate America. Who will be next to send that much needed message?
Running tab of criticisms by the Chamber's own members:
Quit US Chamber: Exelon, PNM Resources, PG&E, Apple.
Quit US Chamber Board: Nike.
Says Chamber doesn't represent their views on climate: Johnson & Johnson, General Electric, San Jose Chamber of Commerce.
Prof. Stephen Schneider: In the 70s he was screaming "ice age cometh"
Now he screams "global warming"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwvUz0mtrOk
So much for honesty... he can't even face up to his own prognostications..
Stanford University has banned a skeptical documentary film from airing a climate change interview with one of its prominent warming activist professors, Stephen Schneider. After legal threats from Stanford University—apparently on behalf of Prof. Schneider—the documentary filmmakers were forced to use a blank screen and an actor had to read the transcript of Schneider’s already taped but legally banned climate interview. The skeptical global warming documentary ”Not Evil Just Wrong”, set for its international premier on October 18, 2009, interviewed Schneider about his flip-flop from a coming ice age proponent in the 1970s to his current advocacy of man-made global warming fears. Schneider is a professor of biological sciences at Stanford University. (email: shswebsite@lists.stanford.edu)
Apple should take advice from you, EdB, of course.
You realize that in the 1970s global average temperatures were actually decreasing (since the 1940s to be accurate) and that most scientists believed this was a long term trend, and that they were simply following the data, right?
Of course you didn't.
Please don't repeat this denial crock. Most scientists did NOT believe the cooling was a long term trend. Schneider wrote ONE paper in 1971 in which he argued that quadrupling of aerosols could overcome the warming trend and cause cooling. Already in 1977 he called his estimates too high. And he's still attacked for it. Sad.
See also:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2008/10/global-cooling-was-a-myth.html
Just saw the skeptical scientist piece. Thanks Marco, you're right. I was simply going by a few articles I read recently, and ones I remembered reading at the time. There seemed to be a few books out then about an impending ice age. One by John Hamaker claimed that lack of minerals in the soil would bring on an ice age and the solution was to sprinkle rock dust everywhere.
But it looks like there were only 7 peer reviewed articles during that decade that predicted global cooling.
Why is EdB-troll prattling-on about a paper that's 38 years old? Is that the best that you can do? Science has moved-on a little since then!
Now to the LIES!
The paper concerned does not predict an ice-age. Read the science!
As is known, only small changes in radiative forcing are required to change the climate. Hence the tiny changes from orbital changes alone cannot explain the transition between ice-age and interglacial. Feedbacks are required. That was what being explored by Rasool & Schneider.
Why mention Schneider? Rasool was the lead author? Because Schneider is the target!
It is agreed the climate sensitivity figure used was too low.
AFAIA nobody has shown that the R&S scientific analysis of the response of climate to increased aerosol was wrong.
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate
Rasool and Schneider
Science 9 July 1971: 138-141
Abstract below
Effects on the global temperature of large increases in carbon dioxide and aerosol densities in the atmosphere of Earth have been computed. It is found that, although the addition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does increase the surface temperature, the rate of temperature increase diminishes with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. For aerosols, however, the net effect of increase in density is to reduce the surface temperature of Earth. Because of the exponential dependence of the backscattering, the rate of temperature decrease is augmented with increasing aerosol content. An increase by only a factor of 4 in global aerosol background concentration may be sufficient to reduce the surface temperature by as much as 3.5 ° K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease over the whole globe is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age.
Why? Because denialist Quote miners can twist any statement to 'prove' the exact opposite of what it really said!
Just Look at Greenman's new video, where precisely this happened!
http://www.desmogblog.com/climate-denial-crock-weekbirth-crock
Duke quit the NAM -- National Association of Manufacturers
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=atyJ49Zn3uQU
Looks like the crazy Danes new theories are gaining traction:(cosmic radiation can cause 7% shift in clouds, obviously much more powerful a climate forcer than CO2)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090801095810.htm
Huge effects on cloudiness
Averaging satellite data on the liquid-water content of clouds over the oceans, for the five strongest Forbush decreases from 2001 to 2005, the DTU team found a 7 per cent decrease, as mentioned earlier. That translates into 3 billion tonnes of liquid water vanishing from the sky. The water remains the-re in vapour form, but unlike cloud droplets it does not get in the way of sunlight trying to warm the ocean. After the same five Forbush decreases, satellites measuring the extent of liquid-water clouds revealed an average reduction of 4 per cent. Other satellites showed a similar 5 per cent reduction in clouds below 3200 metres over the ocean.
clouds and climate - I understand the basic concept of cosmic ray effect and it seems entirely reasonable that something that might affect clouds would be having a much larger effect than a minor trace gas.... but if so we should be seeing more cooling right now. Seems to be acting as a minor effect. We don't see temps falling through the floor on account of reduced solar activity.
cloud effect is complex. They hold heat in at night and trap and/or reflect energy out to space when the sun shines. Cloud cover does a lot of different things. It's not obvious how it is going to affect Earth's temp.
If we get 30 years of cooling - credit the clouds I guess.
Read this paper (http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/464/2094/1367) published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Cosmic rays do not correlate with recent warming.
read:
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=131
» Exelon Corp. is one of the very few utilities that are actually planning to make money off of “cap and tax” – up to $750 million annually per $10 increase in the price of CO2 – for doing nothing other than selling the free credits it gets from Congress, according to CEO John Rowe. Consumers and taxpayers are the ones who will be looted for this booty.
» Apple Corp. said it was leaving the Chamber because of its supposed concerns for the environment. If Apple was really concerned about the environment, it would stop exploiting lax-to-non-existent Chinese environmental laws in the manufacture of its products. If Apple really cared about the environment, it would pressure China to adopt the Clean Air Act for starters. For all its green posturing, Apple should quit China not the Chamber.
» Nike manufactures its shoes and clothes in sweatshops in Indonesia, paying its workers approximately $1.25 a day, while competitor New Balance manufactures its products in the U.S. So Nike wants new federal laws that place New Balance at a competitive disadvantage. Perhaps we are being too harsh. Maybe Nike is truly concerned about “global warming” increasing the temperature in its sweatshops and, thereby, decreasing the productivity of its near-slave-labor... letter from steven milloy to chamber. compelling..